A conversation with Keith Dawson

From researcher, to agronomist, to pioneering farmer, Dr Keith Dawson has worn many hats and developed a successful and varied career spanning six continents, advocating for new technologies and approaches to help UK and global agriculture to adapt and thrive in a changing world.

Keith began his career in farming as a researcher in agricultural environmental science, specialising in soil and crop issues. He was driven by a passion to bridge the gap between research and personal application, finding that too many studies were completed and left to gather dust on the shelf.

“I wanted to speed up the cycle of knowledge implementation. I can talk and understand researchers but can also communicate with farmers on the ground, which is something that is sometimes missing in academic research.”

With that in mind, Keith went on to pursue an expansive and illustrious career, which included various roles with SAC Consulting, overseeing early crop variety testing, working alongside agronomists, and developing new sustainable crop programmes for BASF and the CSC. He spent time as a private government consultant, as well as being appointed a director at BASIS and the Scottish Crop Institute and is the current chair of the Scottish Society of Crop Research.

In 2004, he teamed up with a Scottish farmer farming in Poland, Mark Laird, and founded several agricultural businesses which have grown substantially in size, making significant investment in agriculture in the west of Ukraine and co-founding Poland’s largest crop protection distributor.

“When we first started in Ukraine there was a huge amount of regeneration needed in the soils which had been neglected after Russia had created ‘collective farms’ and consolidating smaller landholdings into bigger collective operations. Our approach was to target inputs with IFM over a lot of hectares and everyone thought we were crazy. I re-mortgaged my house to put capital into the business. We ploughed land that hadn’t been cropped for 15 years and it was some of the best land in Europe. With food security issues arising globally and local poverty, we all felt it was our moral imperative to get involved.

“In 2005, we were growing 90ha of potatoes and this grew to 200,000ha in 2018. We went from employing four local Ukrainians to providing jobs for 3.5k people which has had a ripple effect in building the economy in western Ukraine.

“We put bread on a lot of families’ tables during that period and developed an Eastern European leapfrog effect. We moved from horse drawn carts to GPS controlled tractors within a few years and introduced new genomics and varieties. It was a huge leap forward in Ukrainian agriculture by embracing new technology, particularly genetics.”

Keith paid tribute to some of the fantastic research being carried out by institutes like JHI and how crucial their work will be in finding solutions to climate pressures facing crops, in order improve domestic and global food resilience.

“I believe we can effectively feed 11bn without doing environmental damage, by using new technology effectively. There are huge benefits to be had from the right approach to plant breeding, such as gene editing technology, which can, for example, develop crops which perform more efficiently against drought and disease resistance. We are seeing climate related issues gather pace globally and having more tools in our toolkit to build resilience into our food systems, is going to be increasingly important.”

Having sold their original agricultural businesses in Ukraine in 2018, Keith and Mark set up Central Plains Group, three years ago, growing 900ha of fresh and starch potatoes near Lviv, in western Ukraine. As was the case for many people farming in the region, he explained that the Russian invasion had fostered a great sense of community and moral duty to continue farming and producing food for the nation.

“We made the decision in March 2022, in an act of faith and defiance, to plant 900ha of potatoes, not knowing whether we were going to be able to harvest them, because we felt it was our moral duty.”

He explained that one of the biggest challenges for all Ukrainian farmers has been Russia’s consistent targeting of key infrastructure including grain silos, railways, and ports, inflicting over $6.6bn of agricultural damage – rising to $34bn in indirect losses.

Commenting on the clean-up task ahead, to recover the land and rebuild the country, he reflected that poor mental health will be a lengthy and difficult legacy of the invasion.

“Rebuilding this country is going to take more than bricks and mortar, there are going to be terrible mental health and rehabilitation issues which are going to arise.

“There is a reason why Ukraine is called the breadbasket of Europe, with its fertile soils and high rainfall in the west of the country, which has predisposed it to much conflict over the years.

“The wider impacts on food production and supply, because of the Russian invasion, are still to be felt and will have implications for global hunger yet. This weaponising of gas and grain is having ramifications throughout the world but one positive thing that Russia has done, is unite a divided Europe and shone a light on the indomitability of the human spirit. It is amazing what we can achieve if we work together.”